Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
They must have talked it up. The very next day the bloody ex-boyfriend himself came to visit her at work, looking sheepish.
‘Hey, you.’
Adam hovered in the doorway of the puppy room where Felicity was cleaning the floor. Immediately Freddy the dachshund started growling. Adam jumped and moved back from the doorway, which just annoyed Freddy more. He started yapping even more ferociously and Adam gave Felicity an anguished look.
‘Don’t look at me. He hates me, too.’
They waited. Felicity silently counted the seconds, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, wondering whether the little dog would eventually run out of steam. He didn’t. As if on cue, Felix joined in. Then the bulldogs. Then suddenly, the whole room was at it.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ shouted Adam over the din.
Felicity looked at him for a long moment and felt a new affinity with Freddy. A better judge of character than she was, clearly.
‘Sure.’ She shrugged, carefully navigating the narrow space between Adam on one side and cages full of yapping dogs on the other, and leading the former out into the corridor, trying to calm the dogs down as she did so. The noise was astonishing. She got a waft of Adam’s expensive aftershave as she passed him, which she tried to ignore. ‘But you’ve got five minutes. That’s it.’
The door shut behind them and one by one the dogs quietened down. Mission accomplished. Every so often they could still hear Freddy giving a warning growl as if to prevent a recurrence.
‘Woah, that little dog is really aggressive,’ said Adam, clearly a bit shaken… or had he looked like that when he arrived?
‘He’s been through a lot,’ said Felicity. ‘Who can blame him for being a bit edgy? But I think we’re slowly coming to an understanding, the two of us.’
Adam nodded and crossed his arms like he was feeling a sudden chill.
‘So. Five minutes. Go,’ said Felicity.
‘Right, yes,’ said Adam and then paused.
‘Go on then.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
‘Try.’
‘Okay, fine. Erm.’
What is this?
‘Okay. Look. I came to say I’m sorry, Fliss.’
‘I think we’ve been over this.’
‘I mean it, Felicity. Even now, even these last few weeks, I’ve treated you so badly and I just, I need to tell you I’m sorry. I need you to hear me.’
‘And when were you going to tell me you’d slept with Bex. What the hell, Adam?’
He took a step backwards, his cheeks pink. ‘Oh God. She told you. Look. It never meant anything. She means nothing. You’ve always been the love of my life, you know that.’
There was a pause. Adam seemed to be expecting her to say something. Did he actually have tears in his eyes? The phone rang in the office and Felicity could hear Andrea picking up the receiver, then talking more quietly than usual. She wondered vaguely who it was.
Am I on some kind of hidden camera show? Is that them calling to give me my prize and have a good laugh at my expense?
She’d felt sorry for Adam for a second or two, but it was fleeting. Then she realised, perhaps for the first time in her life, she felt sorry for herself. He opened his mouth to say something more, but she cut him off sharply.
‘I’m sorry too, Adam. I’m sorry I gave up on us but more than that, I’m sorry I wasted so much of my time on you in the first place. It feels like you’ve been hurting me in slow motion.’
‘I don’t think that’s entirely–’
She held up a hand and he stopped abruptly. ‘All these years, you’ve controlled me, manipulated me, cheated on me, and even now you won’t let me get on with my life. You don’t ever want me to be happy and for someone who professes to love me, that’s a very strange state of affairs. You left a bloody ring on my doorstep. What the hell was that about?’
She was in full flow now and although she knew she sounded caustic, she didn’t feel inclined to stop.
‘I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you did, but I’m damned if I’m going to let it rule my life any longer. So, I forgive you, if that’s what you wanted to hear. Will that satisfy you? I forgive you and also I’m not going to be the person who saves you from being alone. Or from your own stupid mistakes. In fact, I never want to see you again.’
As she spoke those final words, Adam dropped to the floor suddenly and with an almighty thump. It happened in a split second, and it was so shocking that Felicity let out a little scream. His eyes were wide open, and he had ended up sitting very upright, leaning against the rabbit enclosure, posed at rather an unnatural angle. Felicity ran towards him, hysterically shouting for Andrea to call an ambulance, convinced he’d somehow dropped dead in that instant, already running through what would happen if she’d killed him with her words.
‘Adam? Adam! I’m so sorry! Adam, please be okay!’
After the longest five seconds in the history of time, Adam blinked once, and the relief was so overwhelming that Felicity dropped to her knees on the floor next to him and started sobbing uncontrollably. She grabbed his arm and felt for a pulse. It was slow and shallow, but it was there. His brown eyes were wide and staring into the distance, his pupils looked enormous, and he seemed to be struggling to breathe. Felicity could feel the panic rising in her own chest; somewhere that seemed very far away she could hear Andrea on the phone – loud this time – giving directions to the ambulance – and she told herself to stay calm. Focus.
Adam was scarily pale. Grey, even. As she watched in horror, he started clawing at his chest.
‘Adam, can you hear me?’ said Felicity, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
When the paramedics arrived, they had to prise her away from him.
He was alive.
That was something.
It had been dicey in the ambulance. The female paramedic riding in the back with them was deep in concentration for the whole journey and never took her eyes from the machines Adam was strapped to. Felicity hadn’t dared speak, she just held Adam’s hand and prayed silently that she hadn’t killed him. Bloody typical, that would be , she thought , if I’ve killed him by saying what I really felt about something for the first time in my life . For Pete’s sake.
When they arrived at the hospital, Adam was whisked away through two sets of swing doors and Felicity spent an excruciating few hours pacing the floor of the waiting room, feeling weighed down by her own guilt and an overwhelming need to comfort eat. She walked backwards and forwards, drinking water from the dispenser and eyeing up the chocolate bars in the vending machine. Exactly how many Mars bars is too many Mars bars? That’s the question…
At 6pm, a doctor finally came to update her. He was a very tall, slim man with glasses, who looked as if he’d had a rough day.
‘He’s alive.’
Felicity nodded, tears springing to her eyes without warning.
‘He’s doing okay, and it’s all thanks to you.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Felicity, shifting uncomfortably.
‘I’m serious, are you a first aider? You must be. It was your fast response, calling the ambulance so quickly in the first place and keeping him awake, which probably saved his life. I mean that. Really, well done.’
Felicity’s stomach had tied itself into a knot by this point. Um. That’s not exactly the whole story.
‘I’m not sure I was that much help, actually…’ she started to say.
‘You were, trust me. Now, the thing is, although he’s doing okay, we don’t know exactly what happened, so we’ll need to run some more tests tomorrow. He’s stable for the moment so I suggest you go home and get some sleep while you can. You’ve been through a serious trauma today, too.’
Felicity nodded, but she knew she couldn’t possibly leave. Instead, as soon as the doctor left, she went outside and rang James.
‘I know it’s spectacularly awkward and I know I don’t have the right to ask you for anything, especially when it comes to Adam… but…’
‘I’m on my way,’ said James, when he managed to gather what was going on between sniffs.
He arrived within the hour and wrapped her up tightly in his arms while Felicity sobbed and snotted all over his shoulder.
Mr Fix-it that he was, James had offered to pay for a hotel just down the road so Felicity could get some sleep but still be near the hospital, but she declined. Although she really wanted to run away and hide under a duvet, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Adam on his own and they had no idea who to call. Felicity wasn’t in touch with Adam’s family anymore, and only God knew if he was still in contact with this Tabitha person. Or whoever it was he’d cheated on her with. Or whatever other woman might have been lurking around the edges of his life these days. A quick nosey on his Facebook profile had left them none the wiser, so instead, they settled in as best they could in the waiting room. James had even brought snacks and a change of clothes for Felicity, procured from somewhere or other on his way. In jollier circumstances, she would have been mercilessly mocking his appalling taste in women’s clothes or asking whether he’d picked up any Percy Pigs. (He had, of course.)
‘Jaaaaaaaaaames,’ said Felicity, later that night, shifting position where she was curled up on the uncomfortable metal bench. The dodgy velour tracksuit he’d bought her – from what she could only assume was a low-price supermarket – was chafing in some awkward places.
‘Hmmm?’ said James, who had been nodding off next to her with his head leaning on his hand.
‘Is it all my fault?’
‘For the millionth time, I’m sure it wasn’t. What did you say to him? I mean… I’m just asking. I’m not suggesting anything.’
‘I blew my top. I have no idea why. It just suddenly all came out, all the anger I’ve been burying for so long. All the stuff about Bex, all of it.’
‘I’m sure you weren’t that bad. You can’t have been… I mean, you never lose your temper.’
‘You weren’t there. It was seriously bad. I feel awful now.’
James patted her leg supportively while Felicity chewed her lip and tried to relax. His presence was definitely a comfort even if the nearness of him so late at night was also rather distracting despite the circumstances.
‘Try and get some sleep,’ said James. ‘We’ll talk to the doctor tomorrow.’